The on board is doing my nut in and would like to upgrade to a good soundcard, external looks good as I've never had one but I'm not sure what to get, was impressed with the creative Ae5 I had a while back but I may be getting a riser later on down the line and I know this will interfere with it. Thanks
Have a look at Fiio stuff. I've got a bluetooth neckband of theirs which is awesome, i know a few here have pocket bluetooth dacs for phones that no longer have 3.5m jack. Their desktop DACs seem to review really well too.
The Fiio E10K is a good little device, comes closer to Chord Mojo performance than you might expect, given the price. I've been using one for game and video sound for two years now and, won't be going back to an internal card. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fiio-E10K-...0k&qid=1684248970&sprefix=fiio+,aps,90&sr=8-1
I run my sound card on a riser. A mining riser to be exact. Don't have any issues with it, and I have now had three setups on it.
I did this research some years ago and came to the dragonfly black https://www.richersounds.com/audioquest-dragonfly-black.html Suspect it performs similarly to the Fiio E10K
Got one of those too. Use it solely on my Nightowl Carbons. Fantastic tbh. Thought it may need an amp but nope, has more than enough clout. I will go back to using the EVGA NU when I refurb my desk and start using my Quad ribbon speakers on it.
Asus xonar essence STX 2 will happily thump out 196/24, DTS and a whole load of other toys. best sound stage ive played with in ages if you've the speakers for it.
thats fine then, ive a set of Massdrop AKG K7XX red's running on it as well and the sound depth and stage is beyond sublime, i'll often just chill out in the dark genuinly enjoying music. I honeslty dont get why people run onboard audio when it sounds like an old man farting through a rolled up newspaper in comparrison.
EVGA Nu Sound can do twice that. If you can find one, and you have the money? best sound card in the world IMO. Designed and engineered by Audio Note UK. However if you are just using cans and cans only? Dragonfly. However, in the sort of class we are talking here (STX II and Nu Sound?) I would get a better one. https://www.amazon.co.uk/AudioQuest...=1684317899&sprefix=audioquest+,aps,71&sr=8-3 Or, the best one https://www.amazon.co.uk/AudioQuest...=1684317936&sprefix=audioquest+,aps,71&sr=8-2 Because they cost around the same, but with a Dragon Tail you can use it with a phone or anything else too.
I've got a Cambridge DACMagic XS 2.0 (v2) (and a spare knocking about somewhere) that's made a difference I've been happy with, running through a Rotel amp. Not the most audiophile of setups and I'm sure there are better above, but it depends on budget, existing headphones etc. as always. It doesn't have a jack hole (so to speak) of this magnitude though. EDIT: Doesn't look like they're available any more, apologies. But just in case you can find one second hand, here's a review and another.
